Helfrich: Not really. I think it'll be great obviously to take up some column inches and that's good for everybody and get up some fan interest in that stuff but in a few weeks it'll really matter. But as we saw this last weekend and the weekend before that the most important thing you have going in your world is the next one up. It's not hey, here's prediction of what's going to happen a couple months from now. It's just that's not how this world exists really.

Does this reinforce how hard it is to win every week?

No question. That's what is so funny when you hear people say, 'well this team only won by this margin or only won in this fashion' -- it's really hard to win, and really hard to win consistently. You know you look at some programs across the country that continue to win year after year, it's impressive. It reinforces that the next day is the most important part of your life.

Any chance to look at UCLA yet?

Defensively, extremely talented set of linebackers. You look at Anthony Barr is the most celebrated of the guys and deservedly so. He reminds me of a kind of little bit leaner, little bit better first step version of Terrell Suggs. All the rest of this guys, Myles Jack, (Eric) Kendricks, I'm not sure how you pronounce the other guy's name, 44, he's an incredible player. They have a very, very impressive group of linebackers who go about six deep and they're matched by a really good front three. They're similar to our defense in how they rotate their front, they play a bunch of guys and rotate a bunch.

What about offensively?

I haven't watched their offense at all, this time of the week I'm focused on their defense but in passing I see a little bit. Obviously, Hundley's an incredibly talented guy and a guy everybody knows about. They have a couple really good running backs who have been productive for them, Payton, Evans, Forte on the outside but I haven't watched any of their offense yet.

Was Marcus Mariota too hard on himself for his mistakes last night?

You want a perfect balance. Like I said last night he's gonna mistakes. I guarantee at some point he'll throw to the wrong team. We're going to believe in him 100 percent on the next play there's no ifs ands or buts about it, that guy's a phenomenal talent. I think the measure of that is that everyone is shocked that he fumbled the ball. Show me a quarterback who hasn't thrown a pick or had a turnover and I'll show you a guy who hasn't played.

As an Oregon guy, what can you say about the passion of former Washington coach Don James?

Absolutely an icon of our game and and obviously our thoughts go out to the James family and the Washington football family with his passing. It doesn't matter what side you're on that guy is a legend in our sport.

Byron seems to be breaking a lot of tackles. What are you seeing from him?

I think he's just getting more confident in what he's doing. Byron's a pretty heavy runner and when he can get on a guy's edge he's tough to tackle with one arm or slow down and I think he's just getting a better overall feel for things, protections, spacing, timing, feel for cuts. Again he still has a lot to improve upon and is a guy that has really been working hard. He had a great week of practice last week and excited about Byron.

Until De'Anthony comes back, Byron Marshall seems to be working very well in tandem with Thomas Tyner.

I think almost exactly what I said about Byron you could say about Thomas. He's Aa guy who just lacks experience. You can almost see him process things when you watch him play. When he cuts it loose and goes full speed he's fun to watch. It's part of his maturation. He's been a really good learner and a really good worker and a very good practice player and again he's just a young pup.

Do you expect the Pac-12 to sanction Nick Aliotti for his comments?

I talked to Nick today and first of all we have a lot of respect and he has a lot of respect for for coach (Mike) Leach and Bill Moos for Washington State and I think the content and the manner of his comments were not representative of him or our program. I know he's remorseful and more of less caught in the moment of defending our players. We'll all learn from that and move on.

Is Arik Armstead available now or is that a competition thing on the defensive line?

I'm not sure exactly what you're asking but for as much as we talk about that kind of thing he's good to go.

What about Jake Fisher, is that also a competition thing?

You know our policy about that. Cameron Hunt did a great job -- that was your next question so I'll answer that for you -- he did a great job of really being assertive. He's a guy who just has a great dirt-dog mentality about him and is learning really well, did some really good things that a veteran guy sometimes struggles with came very natural to him last night. Very excited about him as well.

Not many freshman play on the o-line. What does he have that allowed him to do that?

Mentally he's done a really good job of picking things up. That's a combination that's rare for an offensive lineman and we really like that entire class of offensive linemen. I think we went 5-for-5 with that group. Excited to see those guys grow and develop but you kind of need to make early predictions with those guys in case you need to groom somebody to be ready to go and coach (Steve) Greatwood's done a great job of preparing him to step in.

Are you pleased with the defense?

Definitely. We had a couple silly penalties on both sides of the ball, a couple on defense that kept drives alive and at halftime we just needed to keep to our deal. It wasn't some rousing speech or a chew-out session. We just needed to stay the course almost.

When the outside linebackers have to drop into coverage, what do you see about their role in that?

That's kind of a bullet point in the job description so to speak of those guys, the hybrid space guy but they can ask come up and take on a pulling guard in the run game world. For the most part those guys did a good job and I think the biggest thing again that we did well was limit the big plays. When you make a team like that drive it and drive it and drive it at some point they're going to end up turning it over if you put the pressure on the passer and confusing them in coverage but we just had on the big plays, we had a couple alignment issues and leverage issues and that's stuff you can clean up.